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- Granklint Enochson, Pernilla, 1965-, et al.
(författare)
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From process to a changed practice - How research questions are processed in a collaborative project
- 2019
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Ingår i: NERA 2019. ; , s. 31-32
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In 2017, a regional cooperation project was initiated with four municipalities and Halmstad University, called From Great to Excellence (FGTE), that aimed at reducing the gap between children/pupils capacity and performance. The project is planned to run for five years, and participants are persons active in schools and preschools at different levels within the school practice. Within the FGTE project, the participants perform different development projects in cooperation across the municipal boundaries, where they act as critical friends for each other in order to drive each project forward. Parallel with these activities, follow-up research on the project is conducted that focuses on different parts of the collaborative process. In this study we have concentrated on the participants' work with their respective research processes. The overall aim is to investigate the way in which research questions- and the ability to answer these - are developed by the participants through collaborative projects across municipal boundaries. The question we ask is "How does a (research-) question change through a collaborative process?" School development projects are carried out both at national and international level (e. g. Sales, Moliner & Amat, 2017; Adolfsson & Håkansson, 2015). In this study, the focus is both on regional cooperation and more specifically on the research questions of the participating groups.Theoretical frameworkThe theoretical framework in this study is situated within the socio-cultural field, since much of the focus is around the collaboration between the participants. Conversation is an arena for developing knowledge and by supporting and challenging each other's pronounced thoughts, prerequisites for development of knowledge are given (Vygotsky, 1978).Methodological designThe empirical material for the present study consists partly of the work material from a workshop where the participants' research questions were processed, partly by the participants' final products at the end of their development projects, which was a project report and a poster per project group. The material has mainly been analyzed based on a content analysis perspective (Danielsson, 2017; Denzin & Lincoln, 2003).Expected conclusions/findingsThe analysis is not yet complete, but preliminary results show that the research questions in the projects are not fully answered by the participants. On the other hand, the research questions seems to become more sharp when people from other municipalities are involved in working with the them. It also appears to be problematic to relate to overall, relatively abstract questions, and to make them tangible to their own school practice. Relevance to Nordic educational researchThrough this study, we want to highlight the potential for improvement work in preschool and school practice which lies in developing school activities through a regional cooperation project. This, we mean, are of utmost relevance to Swedish/Nordic as well as international research fields within education.ReferencesAdolfsson, C-H., & Håkansson, J. (2015). Lärande skolor och förskolor i Kalmar kommun - Forskning och lokalt skolutvecklingsarbete i samspel. Rapport. LinnéuniversitetDanielsson, E. (2017). Vetenskaplig teori och metod: från idé till examination inom omvårdnad. Henricson, M. (red.) (Andra upplagan). Lund: Studentlitteratur AB.Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (Eds.). (2003). Collecting and interpreting qualitative materials (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGEVygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. M. Cole, Ed.Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Sales, A., Moliner, L., & Amat, A. F. (2017). Collaborative professional development for distributed teacher leadership towards school change. School Leadership & Management Formerly School Organisation. VOL. 37, NO. 3, 254–266
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- Granklint Enochson, Pernilla, 1965-, et al.
(författare)
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Processing professional research questions : a collaborative development in schools?
- 2020
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Research topic/aim: The focus of this study is how professional research questions work as information between different levels across the school organization. The different questions aim to develop the children and students’ knowledge through the teachers and headmaster’s capacity building in a collaboration project. These questions are processed in a hierarchy from the regional overarching question, the municipalities’ to interpret the overarching question to a professional research questions and finally the schools create concrete professional research questions. At the school level are the final question processed and researched. Theoretical framework: The project is based on how to steer an organist through professional research question. Leadership is important and a challenge in a changing process in an organization (eg. Kotter, 1995). Moreover, a good communication between the participants are important if it shall be a development in the organization (eg. Harris & Jones 2015; Leithwood et al. 2017). The empirical data in this study are analyzed thought two theoretical frameworks in the border between the socio-cultural and the socio- constructivism. Within the socio-cultural field, since much of the focus is around participant in the school collaboration (Hornscheidt & Landqvist 2014, Vygotsky, 1978). However, the percipients must construct their understanding through interactions with the outside world (Ausubel, 1968; Leach & Scott, 2003; Piaget, 1964), when they interpret the question from the regional and municipality level. Methodology/research design: Empirical data was the focus of the meeting with the region and municipality. The participants’ final reports and final posters were collected at school level. Some of the data from meetings where schools collaborated with their critical friends were recorded and transcribed. All the questions on the tree (regional, municipal, school) different level were analyzed, and the issues in questions from the hierarchically high to the low levels were considered. This paper is an analysis from the first year of a 5-year project. It provides a longitudinal study of a project with yearly reports. Some results from year two will be presented at the conference Findings: Findings demonstrate ambitious questions without clear definitions and focus on outcomes. Discussions between the various groups involved in the research demonstrates the need for precise clarifications and definitions in expression and communication. The result is that the question from the municipality steering committees focuses on an inventory of situation in the various municipality schools. Another point of view is that the perspective of the students’ perspectives is missing in the questions in most of the groups. The schools and preschool level are also more focused on their own practice, than the question that were given from the hierarchy above them. Relevance to Nordic educational research: The aim in the study is to develop the knowledge among the teachers so that they can support every child and student to even more develop their capacity to perform in the school, from good to better. The overall aim is to develop the schools through collaboration between municipality’s schools in the region.
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- Johnsson, Annette, 1965-, et al.
(författare)
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Transfer of knowledge from group work to participants' own practice in a course about research methodology
- 2019
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Ingår i: NERA 2019. ; , s. 779-780
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Research topic/aimIn 2017, a regional cooperation project was initiated with four municipalities and Halmstad University, called From Great to Excellence (FGTE). The project is planned to run for five years, and participants are persons active in schools and preschools at different levels within the school practice. Within the FGTE project, the participants perform different development projects in cooperation across the municipal boundaries, where they act as critical friends for each other in order to drive each project forward (see e.g. Sales, Moliner, & Amat, 2017). In this study we have focus on the utilization of knowledge acquired in groups in participants own school context. The question we ask is “How is transfer of knowledge from group work to own practice perceived by participants participating in a course about research methodology? Theoretical frameworkThe theoretical framework in this study is situated within the socio-cultural field, since much of the focus is around the collaboration between the participants. Conversation is an arena for developing knowledge and by supporting and challenging each other's pronounced thoughts, prerequisites for development of knowledge are given (Vygotsky, 1978).Methodological designThe empirical material for the present study consists of a questionnaire disseminated to the participants after they had completed the course. A total number of 57 questionnaires were collected which counts for about 65-70 percent of the total number of participants. The questionnaires were analyzed with SPSS factor analysis to detect underlying variables.Expected conclusions/findingsPreliminary results show that, while expecting quite the opposite, by using factor analysis, a strong negative relation between, on one hand, the variable “the usage of research methodology has developed in the group”, and on the other hand, the variables “I have increased my ability to use new analytical concepts in my practise and “I have increased knowledge in evaluating my own practice”. Meaning that the participants do not feel they, themselves, have learned more about the use of scientific methods relating to their own practice. While the group is progressing, their own learning has been put back.Relevance to Nordic educational researchThrough this study, we want to highlight the potential for improvement work in preschool and school practice which lies in developing school activities through a regional cooperation project. This, we mean, are of utmost relevance to Swedish/Nordic as well as international research fields within education.ReferencesDanielsson, E. (2017). Vetenskaplig teori och metod: från idé till examination inom omvårdnad. Henricson, M. (red.) (Andra upplagan). Lund: Studentlitteratur AB.Tryfos, P. (1996). Sampling methods for applied research: text and cases. New York: Wiley.Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. M. Cole, Ed.Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Sales, A., Moliner, L., & Amat, A. F. (2017). Collaborative professional development for distributed teacher leadership towards school change. School Leadership & Management Formerly School Organisation. VOL. 37, NO. 3, 254–266
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- Nilsson, Pernilla, 1969-, et al.
(författare)
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Coherence in science teacher education : Supporting preservice teachers´use of digital technologies in science
- 2019
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Research indicates, that despite increased access and improved technical artefacts, few teachers have integrated ICT in the curriculum in a way that leads to significant changes in classroom practice. This paper reports on a project where 19 preservice teachers were provided with a reflective tool (T-CoRe) in order to systematically encourage reflection on why and how to use digital technologies in their science teaching. The project aimed to capture and understand aspects of preservice teachers TPACK while planning for teaching particular science topic. The results indicate that working with the T-CoRe has the potential of helping preservice teachers conceptualise their TPACK and make explicit the different dimensions of, and links between, knowledge of content, teaching, and learning about a topic through the use of digital technologies.
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- Widing, Lizette, 1973-, et al.
(författare)
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A social semiotic lens to capture meaning-making of polymeric concepts during modelling in chemistry education
- 2023
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Ingår i: Chemistry Education Research and Practice. - Cambridge : RSC Publishing. - 1756-1108 .- 1109-4028. ; 24:2, s. 659-673
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study investigated students’ meaning-making of polymeric concepts during modelling and discuss students’ creation of visible representations in chemistry. The analysis combines a phenomenographic and social semiotic approach and leads to the finding and description of 21 different meaning-making processes. We refer to meaning-making as the outcome of translative communication through representations, discerned by students, where the collective meaning of created representations that build on each other constitutes the meaning as a whole. The study took place in three Swedish upper secondary chemistry classes. Data were collected from eight groups of 3–4 students (n = 30). Video, audio recordings and photos taken during modelling were analysed to investigate students’ meaning-making during the modelling process. The results show translative changes between and within semiotic resources, indicating meaning for students’ learning of polymeric concepts. Additionally, the representations produced during modelling were essential resources connecting the submicro and macro levels by creating a ‘bridge’ between levels. The results show that the modelling activities practised by all groups were multimodal. The study acknowledges that teachers can use the social semiotic lens as a tool to evaluate students’ modelling in addition to the importance of translative processes during modelling. © 2023 The Royal Society of Chemistry.
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- Widing, Lizette, 1973-, et al.
(författare)
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A Student-Active Approach to Science Models and Representation : A Way to Improve Scientific Language of Second Language Learners?
- 2019
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Recent years changes have taken place in European and Swedish schools. The classroom situation has in many schools changed from single-lingual to multilingual. A larger number of students in Sweden are in the beginning of speaking Swedish but who participate in the same teaching as native speakers. The science disciplines, primarily chemistry, are experienced as difficult by many students because chemistry is abstract and contain many subject-specific concepts. It is a great challenge for teachers to offer teaching adapted to all students regardless of first language.This study intends to investigate how a student-active approach to representations and models in chemistry might be a way to develop the scientific language of second language learners. Active student approach to properties of polymers is a concrete way to visualize and discuss chemical bonding, often perceived abstract otherwise. The study is conducted in a multilingual class, with eight different first languages represented, in upper secondary school in Sweden. The teacher and majority of the students speak Swedish as their first language. Since several languages are represented students cannot use code switching or translanguaging when learning chemistry, to the same extent as in bilingual contexts. In this study, learning is approached as a sociocultural activity focusing on how scientific language develop through interaction with others. Data is collected from classroom practices using audio and video recordings and followed up with semi-structured interviews. Language is analysed from the perspective of adequate scientific language and correct use and understanding of subject-specific concepts using a thematic coding approach. To increase validity intra-rater reliability are used. As the amount of research on how second-language learners use subject specific language while working with models and representations in chemistry is limited, this study might provide useful information about new strategies to improve scientific language of second language learners.
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- Widing, Lizette, 1973-, et al.
(författare)
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Modeling as a Tool to Improve Second Language Learners’ Descriptions of Non-Spontaneous Chemistry Concepts
- 2022
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Ingår i: Science Education International. - Izmir : International Council of Associations for Science Education. - 1450-104X .- 2077-2327. ; 33:2, s. 181-191
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study investigated how modeling in chemistry affect second language learners’ descriptions of polymeric concepts. The aim was to investigate how chemistry discussions mediated by representations, contribute to second language students’ development in the language of chemistry. The study took place in three multilingual upper secondary classes. Participating students were (n = 16) second language learners and (n = 14) first language learners. There were in total eight different first languages represented. Data comprised polymeric concept descriptions, audio recordings, and photos taken during modeling. The concept descriptions were analyzed by an inductive content analysis which was then used for a deductive analysis of the modeling-activity. The results show that 65% of second language learners concept descriptions showed an increased clarity, and 45% showed increased use of chemical concepts after the modeling-activity. This study highlights how students in a multilingual context develop their language of chemistry by discussing chemistry scaffolded by representations. The results show that second language learners in a multilingual context benefited from the modeling-activity. As such, the study acknowledges that modeling contexts can be used in teacher education, both in-service and pre-service, to highlight the importance of the role of representations when teaching in the multilingual context.
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